you two look so good together

Contrary to the claims (or, denials, rather) of alcoholics and addicts at large, it’s not a clean line or a dirty cocktail that lights the night.

Especially when the creeping cold glues us to our couches. And even though Cape Town has come home from the contentious and much coveted SAMAs  with no less than a dozen of them for the Mother city mantelpiece, fireplaces and feather duvets have suddenly become hot property (quite literally).  So despite a slightly more dashing public image, live local music may have to work a little more cleverly to get attention this season, rather than harder. (It’s hard enough, after all, to get a good song circulating beyond a Facebook fan page player.)

A good gig takes a good band; but a great gig takes a great combination. Get the setting, the sound and the souls right, and you have a great night on your hands. If your heart is holed up like most people’s hearths were until last week, try a little pairing up this season. I’m talking musical coupling, yeah? Sorry to say, but co-dependency isn’t healthy any other way.

This Friday while the faithful walk to their holy houses in the rain, and the unfaithful walk to their unholy houses in the rain, Cape Town is cutting it clean with some of the finest combinations since Lindt got balls. Take a sniff of

Joshua Grierson and Mr. Cat And The Jackal – @Dorp Straat Teater. heart strains and pirate stains tumbling over each other unapologetically.  (Bonus - the venue is as quaint and cosy as its performers are not).

 The Sleepers and Foto Na Dans @ ZULA. Dark rock and arte rock to revive the listless and ground the restless. Think contemplative and incendiary. Think sirens and soul mates. Think Le-Roi and Sy (see pic above) No, don’t think. You won’t need to.  

 And if you’re just in it for the party, and you like it in the Ass   (embly), you’re still in the right city. Pull in (ahem) to Our petal ploys (ag, boys), Magic of Pegasus  - who may or may not be taking the piss (watch this space)  .  As Friday unfurls, they will pull on their spandex and flex their skinny screams to deliver you a bubble bath of pseudo-electro cum glam cock sexiness (or is that pseudo-sexiness? Or Speedo testiness? You’ll never know if you don’t get down there. ahemagain). Next to their cotton candy tonguing cheekiness, bruise your heartbeats on the muddy cuts and cutting chords of Tigerstrike - electro energy; analogue emotion. Even if you don’t like it, you’ll probably dance to it.

Sadly, most of us now know that Nothing is no more. Mama Know Nothing, yes? No.  The untimely undoing of the city’s best looking (there, I finally said it) folk-funk-blues-babes (the boys too), means that there is one hot coupling that won’t happen. Ever.  I wanted guns and mamas, pretty nothings, swinging blues, slow bleeding fusion. But no, all we have to look forward to now is the official release of the dirty post mortem. There’s a story behind it, of course, and I’ll be telling my version of it shortly. But beauty (and brilliant shooting) aside,  substitutes will never suffice the real thing, so I guess I’m just going to have to get over becoming an aural orphan of the Mamas, and keep gunning for the Guns. (Speaking of which, have you joined the union yet?) That’s hotstix ma’Lucas’s not-so-little side project.  Listen a little here , you might like it.

It's sobering that in the midst of mourning, the music goes on. We’ve lost the lovelies, but they’ll come up with a new combination, no doubt. We’re still very lucky to be complaining about some of the sorts of couplings that come about on a Friday night, even if other ones disintegrate like powder.

 

star quality

Showbiz is hard work, for sure. Business obligations carry on way after the singing, stringing, strumming, banging and drumming have silenced. People want a piece of you if you've been on stage. All those hands grabbing your groin, cameras in your face, body parts to sign, not to mention the drinking, dancing, flirting - or should i say networking... Poor rock musicians. What a performance!

On average, I mean "performance" literally. Most performance is average. Most performance is an act. A good deal of what we see on stage is an act of sorts - an offering to the gods of the celebrity pedestal, a testament to the adoration of minion masses pulling at their panties and tugging at their already unruly hairdos. Most performance is average. Most performance is put on. This observation doesn't double as a compliment, unfortunately. For me, real star quality is about catharsis, not the catwalk, and the superficial strutting is starting to bore me.

Some souls have the solitary gift of being able to stand up on stage and exude excellence and/or eccentricity without (looking like they're) trying. Helplessly Brilliant? Yes. These are the ones who pierce your peace and leave an indelible mark on your subconscious. Think Inge. Chameleon. (and please ask them to do a duet sometime) You might never remember their names but you'll never forget their presence, musicality and demeanour. These are the ones worth watching. Actually, these are the ones you can't help watching. These are the ones that might survive themselves. With a certain naked frankness, without seeming to mind that their person is displayed for the scrutiny of all, they climb into the light and shine with an honest expression of self, soul and talent. However bizarre or unusual that might be, it comes across as indubitably authentic and essential. Picasso, not Pavlov.

By contrast, good entertainers have crafted an act that puts them on the spot in the spotlight, something they perfect and explore, nip and tuck and tailor for the benefit of their benevolent audiences. The effort is admirable, and the craft brings laughter, awe, and enjoyment to many. The more hard working and professional the approach, the more evolved the entertainment factor, but it remains an experience based on premeditated charm and simulated (sex) appeal. If you're in the audience on the receiving end, the conjuring act on stage can never be yours the way it can in the presence of greatness. It won't penetrate your psyche, it won't surface in your dreams, it wont take you home with it. Why? Because when you watch an act, you're not consuming something innate, you're swallowing a carbon copy of an approximation of authenticity. With the right lipstick and lip sync, they become something more than they are. (and, it must be said, choosing the right audience is part of the formula. Performers are not the only ones in the habit of approximating authenticity.)

The very effort that separates entertainers from the ordinary (wo)man in the street divorces them from real stars. It’s the effortless ease that separates rising stars from hard working performers. Stars are just being themselves. Most of them probably can’t help it. It makes them unbelievably irresistible.

Sure, tastes vary, and we need all kinds of entertainment to forget the unanswered questions and unmapped roads. You might have a taste for a bit of thigh, banter on the fly, you might want half a stand-up routine before the first chord is played. You’ll get that, and you’ll probably enjoy it if it’s well done. The city is filled with frustrated divas just dying to be looked at. The stars wont’ do that. Or, if they do, they won't do it for that reason. They’ll climb up on stage and sing, scream, swing their arms around, stand silently or pull faces and insult your mother because they can’t help themselves, and they don’t want to, anyway. The stage is one part of a process of becoming and embodying. They’re here because they must. And whatever it is they’re giving to you on stage is NOT a performance, it's a gift. and believe me, they need you to receive it. That doesn’t mean they can’t improve their rapport with their public, or that you shouldn't be mad when they are out of line. In fact, that's where these definitive boundaries of star and performer merge. That’s perhaps where skilled performers could give stars some quick and handy tips. Both approaches do good work, and both bugger it up, at times. A respectful exchange could make the world of difference to enthusiastic, discerning audiences everywhere.

Problem is, a true star is not going to take anyone’s word for it until s/he sees it personally. That's what makes them impossible and important. And that is why we believe in them. Because it’s real.

Some local stars : (front men and women to watch)

Sannie fox.
Mamma Know Nothing - the former Black Betty

Joshua Grierson .
Mercurial.an impassioned singer/songwriter proving that there IS a potential for audience-crossover between the Watery Front and seedy bars.

Le-Roi Nel.
Foto Na Dans forever. even if he's keeping mum at the mo.

Jaxon Rice.
Diesel Whores. first prize for being the only person I’ve heard and met who is more interesting OFF stage than on it. (and no, he's not boring on stage. he's brilliant, self-effacing and sarcastic.)

Inge Beckman.
(The former) Lark's lass, and currently planning the next big thing. Everyone has a million synonyms for Inge's on stage presence, but the truth is that there aren't any.

mama know nothing & mercurial

yes, so I know we're all giddy with this sort-of summer, and we can't stop saying Happy New Year even if we don't know what date or day it really is, but really - it's time to go back to work now and start paying off your credit card . (To console yourself, of course, you can always spend every other waking moment at your favourite watering hole trying to recall what it was like to be free.)

A good choice for that tonight would be at Upstairs (Royale on Long) featuring the talents and allure of Mamma Know Nothing and Mercurial - a cross-section of indigenous alternative folk. Yummy! Get some country in the inner city. Get some funk in your fine bodies. And yes, it IS my fault, actually. That’s what happens when you connect people under the auspices of a party...

he he he he.

lyrical wishes

Dear God

I'd love to listen to

• A duet with Zolani and Thandiswa

• Chris Chameleon versus Inge Beckman in psychedelic vocal gymnastics

• Black Betty and the Diesel Whores in the same gig
  

• a stripped-down, acoustic ditty with Sanni Fox and Joshua Grierson (voice.guitar.heaven.)

• another ditty by Sanni Fox and George Van Der Spuy. just voices.

in the meantime, i'm really liking the spring birdsong at 5am. thanks.

Amen
Jezebel

raw and boundless : taxi violence in belville

i don't think i survived the weekend. was it the music? the sleepers, josh grierson(Mercurial), taxi violence. but then, according to the stone roses, you don't have to wait for death for this kind of heaven in the first place. if i am writing from beyond my skin, just know that you can still catch them live. who?

my perennial princes :

Taxi Violence

.

it was an acoustic set at Kuns Kafee in Belville Saturday night. between the backend of nowhere and the beginning of beyond ("behind the boerewors gordyn"), where old school meets new wave, the boys blew us away.

everything about them is understated and sexy.most of all the naturalness with which they live their passions and give it all to the music.

this time, louis (drums) strummed a geetar. they rearranged the songs to suit the scene. it might have been acoustic, but it was more powerful than anything i've yet heard from them - a tempered intensity. the guitars that sing. stop. drop. climax. a vocalist whose whole heart is in every breath. vocal harmonies that blend perfectly to court the guitar. drums that underscore the earth and fire in everything, that punctuate and perforate the harmony enough to move it from vibrating though your flesh down to your bones to redesign your blood. a steely crescendo that takes you higher and higher and deeper until

until?

it's like drugs. like love. it's the finger of the sun breaking into a dark vacuum.

Taxi violence is the consequence of synergy

Josh Grierson (Mercurial)

I don’t think there are words. But I will pull some together anyway. Considering profanity is my profession.

I have never been belted by beauty. I think. Disarmed, distended, upended; yes. But belted, no. Not until Josh (performing variously as Mercurial, Emokidjosh, and Josh Grierson, and often grabbing a mic during Taxi sets). As a precursor to its magnitude, I was knocked over by his voice during sound check - blasting though two doors and three walls over every other plugged instrument. With no mic. Thank heavens I was sitting already.

Then he came on stage, unassuming, warm, easy. And slaughtered us with the sweetest sounds. One man standing.

If you’re old enough (and no I’m not, but) think human rights concert 1987. A girl with a guitar. Captivates the whole crowd. (that was Tracy Chapman). Only, this is a guy. And we’ve got our rights. Or so it says in the constitution. This is a guy, with a guitar, and the voice of a vengeful angel.

This is what they call dumbstruck. Never mind the thunder.

It’s dry lightning with a kiss at the end. Just like last night’s almost-storm.

Josh Grierson's voice made my soul cry.

Use your rights. open your ears. and let him sing the sin out of you.